Bombay Brasserie, one of the world’s most iconic restaurants, is offering customers a unique opportunity to witness at first hand how it conjures up some of the finest food outside the Subcontinent from the week beginning 27th July 2009 until 26th September 2009.
Never ones to turn down a free lunch we happily took delivery of a sample bag of GBK’s new smaller lunch burgers at the office. At this point we should perhaps tie ourselves up in moral knots about the propriety of being ‘bribed’ in this way, but we won’t. GBK took a chance – if the burgers and fries had turned out to be crap we would have said so quite happily. Instead we liked them a lot.
The UK’s most popular Thai event, the biannual festival in Surrey, is fast approaching and this yea’s extravaganza promises to be better than ever with over 40,000 visitors expected. The event is organised by Mudita Trust, a UK registered Charity supporting the secondary education of boys and girls from some of the poorest villages in Thailand helping prevent them from entering into the sex trade and instead using education as a tool in helping them make a better future.
Damian Allsop Chocolates, known for the avant-garde chocolate collections made using a unique water-based (rather than cream-base) recipe, launched their latest creation, ‘CLOUDS’ at the end of June. Do try them
‘The Saltoun Supper Club’ takes place each week at Arno’s home in Brixton, converted into a prop for pleasure dining. The décor bears testament to an artists eye – a nude of a tall, girlie figure by Tracey Emin clings, arms by sides, to the hall wall; on the stairs, a moneybox by Gilbert & George invites financial fuel with the words, ‘pay up and f*** off’.
‘You have to mash the bananas by hand, squeeze them through your fingers. you can’t use a blender.’ Mark Read Head Chef at Mango Tree and at Awana is telling me how to make Thai Banana cake accompanied by hand gestures reminiscent of someone milking a particularly recalcitrant cow, ‘you want the lumps,’ he says. ‘Like Guacamole?’ I suggest. ‘Exactly!’
Forget bottled cider †according to London’s top mixologists there’s only one way to have your apples and pears this summer and that’s mixed with Cazadores, Mexico’s national spirit. The official cocktail of the boutique festival tipped as one of this summer’s hottest tickets (Secret Garden Party of course), the Secret Garden Margarita is available now in award winning London bars such as Green & Red and Quo Vadis.
My brief experiment with vegetarianism foundered on the large rock that is a bacon roll. At 6 a.m your defences are down and the waft of ketchup is too much to resist. Maybe I would have stayed loyal to the cause had there been dishes like the ones Vanilla Black are creating.
To celebrate the ‘Films We Love’ season, which is running throughout July and August at the ICA on The Mall, their talented head mixologist, Danny Choy, has developed a list of delicious, contemporary cocktails designed to complement the cinematic gems perfectly. Enjoy these special cocktails at the edgy, cool ICA bar only on offer throughout the ‘Films We Love’ season, which started on 10th July and runs until 31st August.
What kind of sadist puts bits of super-hot chili in with the peanuts? A Mexican one maybe, one laughing his sombrero off as he watches greedy food writers stuff handfuls of nuts into their mouths one minute then go a funny colour the next.
